Turbo reliability...

[scgtam]

Hi Guys,

 

Finally have a chance and time to post here. Bought the last available white 5 spd LGT wagon in the bayarea on june 2. Loving it from the first date. :lol:

 

I was reading the Audizine( I am an audi salesperson), lot of people got blown turbo on their car.

 

Are there any people have experience problem with their turbo in our LGT??

 

Having the car for 3 months I am already at 11000 mi. I think I am getting the extend warranty before the warranty end. Any thought??

 

Thanks for all reply and input. Good days!

 

Gary

[RuskiTrombone]

Subaru > Audi .. Audi has had problems since the 80s

[Drakuun]

Does Audi even have a car comes with a turbo as standard?

[Beanboy]

Base motor in A3, A4 is a direct injection 2.0L turbo... Great motor. Direct injection means NA-level compression, off-boost character is very nice.

[Drakuun]

Ahh... well, that shows you how strong their Turbo program must be If I didn't even know that.. lol.. And that is of course as Joe-consumer... I know Subys have turbos.. how could you not? See...

[starlabs]

Audi TT's also come standard with a turbo (they sure as hell need it, given their weaksauce 1.8L engines)

[rfd425]

Audi has been making turbos for a long time, starting (as far as I know) with the 5-cylinder turbo in the original Quattro coupe (1981). The 5-cylinder turbo was a very strong, reliable engine that was used, and steadily upgraded, until the late '90's.

 

The 1.8 liter 20-valve 4-cyl. turbo was introduced in '97, and is a light, versatile tuner-friendly engine. They also made a 2.7 liter twin-turbo that was in the '00-'02 S4 and also available in the A6 starting in 2000. I'm not familiar with their more recent turbo engines such as the 2.0.

[low_suby_wagon]

I ran audi's for many years, they are very reliable. The main audi problem in the 80's was the automatic tranny. The quattro turbo and cs turbo models of the 5000 were very strong, just needed more mt's. Ohhhh let us not forget the 4000 that was a bad mistake even with the cs turbo option.

[eles1]

Hi Guys,

 

Finally have a chance and time to post here. Bought the last available white 5 spd LGT wagon in the bayarea on june 2. Loving it from the first date. :lol:

 

I was reading the Audizine( I am an audi salesperson), lot of people got blown turbo on their car.

 

Are there any people have experience problem with their turbo in our LGT??

 

Having the car for 3 months I am already at 11000 mi. I think I am getting the extend warranty before the warranty end. Any thought??

 

Thanks for all reply and input. Good days!

 

Gary

 

I've heard of Audi owners with modded cars blowing their turbos, but not stock ones. Probably a fluke....

[rfd425]

I ran audi's for many years, they are very reliable. The main audi problem in the 80's was the automatic tranny. The quattro turbo and cs turbo models of the 5000 were very strong, just needed more mt's. Ohhhh let us not forget the 4000 that was a bad mistake even with the cs turbo option.

 

What was the problem with the 4000? That was a great little car, and probably one of the more reliable Audis of the last twenty years.

 

There was no turbo available in the 4000 in North America, and I don't believe anywhere else either. The CS was just a trim line. I did know a few people in the Quattro Club who put 5000 turbo engines into 4000's though. Those were pretty fast cars, since the 4000 Quattro only weighed around 2800 lbs.

[low_suby_wagon]

Woops didn't mean turbo (used to writing it based on owning a 5000 cs turbo.) Maybe it's just personal experience but everthing on those little buggers went wrong. Heater blower motors, electrical problems, broken handles, cold start valves, timing issues etc... My best friend got me into audi's after a trip to Germany, he had a 4000 I later bought the 5k. I do have to say though I loved the sporty look to the the 4K with the cs opt. I also had a 100 for a brief time before it got totaled, in retrospec the only the thing that went wrong with that was when I changed the head unit the display in the middle of the odometer went fuzzy.

[rfd425]

Maybe it's just personal experience but everthing on those little buggers went wrong. Heater blower motors, electrical problems, broken handles, cold start valves, timing issues etc... My best friend got me into audi's after a trip to Germany, he had a 4000 I later bought the 5k. I do have to say though I loved the sporty look to the the 4K with the cs opt.

 

Maybe they worked out some of the gremlins in the later years. The 4000's that I know very well were '86-87's, so maybe they were better than the earlier models. I know the '83-84 Quattro coupes were disasters as far as reliability was concerned, with a lot of the problems you mentioned. My independent Audi service shop had several 4000's as loaners, and they all had like 250,000 miles on them. They were fun cars too, although they were kind of slow. When I was active in the Quattro Club ('98-'01), there were guys that ran 4000's at 10-12 track events per year, year after year. Of course, those guys usually knew how to fix their own cars.

 

Back on topic, I think the Audi turbos were fine unless you pushed them too far without doing all the necessary mods. The only 5-cylinder engines that I personally knew of that blew were in a Sport Quattro that was pushing 500 hp. They had to send them back to Germany every time for a rebuild, at $20,000 a pop. I do recall some issue with wastegate springs or something on the early A4 1.8 turbo's.

[LegacyLover]

Sorry to ruin your fun guys but I would like to get back on topic about the reliability of the Subaru turbo seeing it is one of my concerns about the GT. My dad always told me that turbo = more problems and its become one of those deep seeded childhood things.

 

So am I going to have to pay more for maintenance with or without the turbo?

 

Thanks much

[pdw]

I ran audi's for many years, they are very reliable. The main audi problem in the 80's was the automatic tranny. The quattro turbo and cs turbo models of the 5000 were very strong, just needed more mt's. Ohhhh let us not forget the 4000 that was a bad mistake even with the cs turbo option.

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Go read Audiworld a bit.

[rfd425]

Sorry to ruin your fun guys but I would like to get back on topic about the reliability of the Subaru turbo seeing it is one of my concerns about the GT. My dad always told me that turbo = more problems and its become one of those deep seeded childhood things.

 

So am I going to have to pay more for maintenance with or without the turbo?

 

You're considering the Legacy and the Passat, right? Trust me, you'll pay less for maintenance on the Legacy turbo than you'll pay on the Passat with or without turbo.

[biturbowagon]

Now you have.

 

The turbos in my bone-stock S4 Avant were replaced under warranty. They hadn't yet blown, but were on their way out.

 

 

 

I've heard of Audi owners with modded cars blowing their turbos, but not stock ones. Probably a fluke....

[biturbowagon]

Hard to say.

 

I've owned two turbocharged cars. The turbos were replaced under warranty on my '01 Audi S4 Avant. OTOH, the original turbo was still working like a champ on my '91 Mazda 626 GT when its transmission broke at 295,000 miles. (I'm still in touch with the current owner.)

 

 

Sorry to ruin your fun guys but I would like to get back on topic about the reliability of the Subaru turbo seeing it is one of my concerns about the GT. My dad always told me that turbo = more problems and its become one of those deep seeded childhood things.

 

So am I going to have to pay more for maintenance with or without the turbo?

 

Thanks much

[RobY]

There was an audiworld survey... basicly 1 in every 10 blew thier turbos.

 

http://audiport.com/survey/turbo/turbo-main.htm

 

I havent heard of any subaru blowing thier turbo unless they are doing somthing stupid with it. Search http://www.NASIOC.com non-abuse turbo failure is almost non-existant even in old old old subarus.

 

Japanese turbos tend to be orders of magnitude more stout than the crap KKK turbos used in audis.

[pdw]

The thing is, most Audi turbos don't "blow". The waste gate gets stuck open.

[sandwood]

Hard to say.

 

I've owned two turbocharged cars. The turbos were replaced under warranty on my '01 Audi S4 Avant. OTOH, the original turbo was still working like a champ on my '91 Mazda 626 GT when its transmission broke at 295,000 miles. (I'm still in touch with the current owner.)

 

I owned one of those mazdas for a couple of years. good car. it had a little boost that hit right at, what, 3200 rpm, always brought a smile to my face, even though it was a little silly on the highway. the hatchback was uber practical too.

[sutter2k]

Also note the turbos are much cheaper to replace then say turbo's on the B5 s4.

[John M]

I've owned 7-8 turbo cars in the past 10 years. The only one that ever had an issue was when my Galant VR4 blew its stock turbo at 125k miles during a run vs. a Mustang at over 120 mph. 3 hours and one cheap stock DSM turbo later it was back on the road.

 

So, if you "only" get 100k miles on a turbo it costs maybe $500 if you pay for someone else to do the labor. Stock Suby turbos are also cheap and the install is easy too, so it's nowhere near the chore it is on other cars.

[mkaresh]

I came across a cheap 2004 S4 Avant a few months ago, the V8 variety. I could have picked it up for about $33,000, miles in the teens. Tempted, I asked audiworld members about reliability. The short answer: if you're concerned about reliability, you have no business buying an S4. Or probably any Audi, for that matter.

 

Those guys wear the unreliability of their cars like a badge of courage. Seems real drivers don't care about reliability.

 

I would have liked some solid data. Since existing sources of reliability data leave much to be desired, I'm going to be conducting my own research. Based on the current level of interest, the 2005 Legacy / Outback will be among the models included in the initial surveys. As I write this I'm just three short of the minimum sample I require. So I should have some preliminary data on this car by the spring of 2006. For the details, see my site: www.truedelta.com.

[rfd425]

I asked audiworld members about reliability. The short answer: if you're concerned about reliability, you have no business buying an S4. Or probably any Audi, for that matter.

 

Those guys wear the unreliability of their cars like a badge of courage. Seems real drivers don't care about reliability.

 

That's funny, because I was a regular on that board back when it was A4.org, from 1997 until 2000 or so. The A4 was fairly new then, and most people on the board claimed that Audis were just as reliable as Toyotas and Hondas. Of course, most of them had never owned an Audi before the A4. When problems did arise, no one seemed to care much, because it was usually covered by warranty.

 

I guess by now, those guys can't lie to themselves any more, although they also can't bear to give up membership in the "club". By continuing to buy Audis, they get positive reinforcement from all their Audi buddies, and they get recognition from people who are impressed that they can afford an expensive, good-looking car.

 

By the way, I loved my A4, except for all the hassle and expense of getting it fixed all the time. The Legacy GT is a step up, though.

[harrydog]

Maybe things have changed or maybe I just got lucky, but my 1994 Audi S4 was just as reliable as any of the Japanese cars that I've owned, meaning that I had zero proplems with it during the 4 years that I owned it.

I love German cars, but I know, generally speaking, they don't have the same reliability as most Japanese cars do. And when they do require repairs, it usually costs much more to fix.

So, since I'm not rolling in money, I'm sticking with Subarus. They're a safer bet, cost less, and are pretty darn fun to drive too.